The setup you see here took
only about twenty minutes to prepare. The camera was mounted to the tripod
in the position shown, at a low angle. The foreground dressing is some
"lunar dust" sprinkled and heaped onto a piece of wood placed directly
in front of the camera lens to hide the edge of the table that the model
was sitting on. This is known as "Dressing To Camera", whereby , unlike
a display diorama, the only thing that matters is what the camera lens
actually sees, and that is the only area where attention is paid to detail.

The main problem with using
these simple work lights for this kind of shot is that there is a fairly
prominent "hot spot" or extra bright area on the part of the scene that
is closest to the key light. This problem can be reduced somewhat if you
have more room to get the light further away from the set. The other alternative
is to use light that is lensed, such as that from a slide projector or
professional spotlight. Using lensed light would also create harsher, more
realistic shadows.

This simple setup is very
similar to the way professional special effects shots are done for film
and TV, except of course, the pros have more room, bigger models and access
to much better and more expensive equipment!